


The consequences of sleep deprivation

by Os_Lacrimale



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Bad Spelling & Grammar, Comforting Jim, Confusion, Fluff, Huggs, Love, M/M, Meditation, Science, Sleep deprived Spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22132573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Os_Lacrimale/pseuds/Os_Lacrimale
Summary: Spock has not had the chance to sleep for more than a week due to a critical experiment. Finally having the opportunity for some rest, he is disturbed by a very confused Captain and drawn into a mystery of his own making.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Spock, James T. Kirk/Spock
Kudos: 93





	1. A Temporary conundrum

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I am writing for this fandom, so this is more than a little exciting. The story is mainly based on a very stupid autocorrect mistake present throughout all of the 14 pages of a slice culture protocol that I have produced during my current internship. It was only when one of my fellow lab-mates came to ask me why I am storing dissecting buffer on a bridge instead of in a fridge that I realized my mistake. I hope you enjoy it, though many of the scientific procedures have of course been altered to fit the story. (Especially the storage conditions of the plates).

"Mr Spock, would you please come to the bridge for a moment?" Jim Kirk asked over the Enterprises intercom system.  
“Of course Captain, I will be there in precisely 5,73 minutes” Spock replied, still a bit drowsy in his attempt to shake off the deep meditational state he had been in.  
Spock had left the bridge early to advise in a sensitive experiment in the labs and had after that immediately retired to his rooms for meditation. Though the Captain was reluctant to disturb the well-deserved rest of his lover and First Officer, matters on the bridge did seem grave enough to require the immediate attention of the Chief Science Officer.  
Precisely 5,734 minutes later, a rather tired looking Spock emerged on the bridge, staring rather dumbfoundedly, well as far as Vulcans were capable of anyway, at the numerous stacks of well-plates piled on various surfaces. If he were not very mistaken, these were the exact well-plates containing that he had advised his science cadets to store on the refrigerator.  
Turning to his dumbfounded lover, Jim asked not without worry: “Spock, could you give us a logical explanation as to why containers with tissue samples from our previous mission have been transported to the bridge? Is there any ongoing emergency in the lab-spaces that I should be aware of?”  
Pulling himself visibly together, Spock turned his gaze from the disaster that was his experiment to his lover standing before him. Opening his mouth once, then twice in a very uncharacteristic speechlessness, Spock tried to understand just HOW the work of 20 scientists over 247,552 hours could have ended up on the bridge of the Enterprise.  
“I am currently not aware of any emergency occurring in the laboratory facilities. I gave 3 cadets the order to store the samples according to protocol when I left the location exactly 2.457 hours ago." Spock swallowed visibly, trying to come up with ANY logical explanation for this utterly unrelatable circumstance.  
"Did you alter standard storage regulations without consulting me, Mr Spock?" Jim asked with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, somehow the chaos was starting to become very amusing. Especially since it apparently caught his normally very composed and stoic lover entirely of guard. Luckily, only lieutenant Uhura was still on the bridge with them to witness the out of character behaviour Spock was exhibiting. The other crew members had been given leave for the rest of the Alpha shift when it became apparent that they would not be able to sit anywhere.  
"I'm also not aware of any alterations in storage regulations for tissue samples Captain. And I assure you that I have not altered any…" Jim cut his lover's slightly panicked speech off by placing a careful hand on his arm.  
“I know Spock, I’m sorry, this is not a time for jokes. Do you think that the samples will still be salvageable? Or should I give orders to return to Poly 5prime?”  
Breathing deeply in and out a couple of times, Spock calmed his rather frantic and completely illogical thought processes, to more moderate and logical paths. “No Captain that will not be necessary. The samples will not be damaged by their residence at room temperature on the bridge. Though I also do not come to any logical explanation as to why the samples are presently located on the bridge and not on top of the cooling units in the science facilities.”  
“Well Mr Spock, let's go investigate. Lieutenant Uhura, you have the bridge, if anything happens to please com us."  
Jim grinned at a visibly startled Uhura. It was very uncommon for a communications officer to hold the bridge, more so even that only one officer was on the bridge. But Jim feared contamination if he ordered the complete alfa shift back to the bridge with all these rather delicate samples laying around. And if something unexpected happened, he and Spock would only be about 3 minutes with the turbo-lift away. Nodding at Uhura Spock also turned about and followed carefully, not stepping on his samples to the turbo-lift.


	2. The Laboratory

Jim pulled Spock closer to him as soon as the turbo-lift doors had closed behind them. "Are you alright, my love?" he murmured when Spock spontaneously leaned into him. When their hands met, Jim was overwhelmed by a wave of pure fatigue from his T’hy’la.  
“I am fine Ashayam, merely a slight weariness due to a lack of sleep and meditation in the last 247,552 hours. I will be able to operate with no more than a 32,34% efficiency loss.”   
Sighing heavily, Jim leaned his head against Spock's where he had taken refuge in the crook of where Jim’s head met his shoulder. “You need to take better care of yourself love. I know that you need less sleep than a human, but not sleeping in over 200 hours is just ridiculous. What did you do after we went to bed in the previous days? Did you just go to the lab again after I went to sleep?” A slight nod at his shoulder was the only answer that.   
Shaking his head in slight exasperation, Jim pulled his lover closer to his side for a moment. Only to let go of him again when the turbo-lift slowed down, alerting them to their imminent arrival at the lab-spaces.   
They stepped into the corridor, fully prepared for any amount of chaos to swallow them directly. Only to do a double-take at the utterly peaceful environment. Well except for the slightly startled response of some science ensigns being faced with not only one but two of their superior officers.   
“Commander Spock, can we be of service? Lieutenant Brown said you would retire for the night and that the additional testing of the probes would only take place tomorrow.” One of the science cadets whom Spock had requested to store the samples asked, confusion evident on his face.   
“Then you are the perfect individual to explain what you have done with the samples young man." The Captain shot back even before Spock had the chance to open his mouth.  
Looking even more surprised and more than a little awed, the cadet gazed at Kirk. "For the suprachiasmatic nucleus cultures, we have sliced the brains which Commander Spock had retrieved from the different organisms. Then we have removed the excess buffer and have placed them on top on an insert-membrane. This was then placed in a well of the 24 well-plate and have added 250 microliters of the pre-made conservation and growth medium to the slices. The plates are then stored to protocol. As for the algae cultures, first, we have genotyped the algae to determine their sex, then…"  
“Hold on a second,” Jim interrupted the scientific monologue. “Could you please elaborate on precisely HOW you stored the samples?”   
"Well, literally as described in the protocol that Commander Spock gave me sir. First, distilled water is added in-between the wells in the plate to keep moisture within the plate. Then an antibiotic and antimycotic mist is sprayed on the slices to prevent infections and to seal the slice. The slices are then stored on the bridge overnight."  
The cadet declared this with such a proud and straight face that Kirk could not imagine that the man was mocking them. He really seemed to be convinced that he had done an excellent job storing the probes.   
“Cadet, would you please elaborate the logic behind storing well-plates on the BRIDGE of this ship? What scientific purpose should that serve?” Spock, who had followed the conversation with ever-increasing astonishment, asked.   
“I have been wondering about the same, Sir.”   
"In that case, I fail to understand why you decided to place the slices on the bridge. I am 99,99% certain that this instruction is not written on the protocol that was provided to you and your collogues.”   
"But Sir, it is written in your instructions that the samples need to be stored on the bridge." Typing quickly on his PADD, the cadet produced the protocol that he had been provided with and handed it to the Captain.   
Jim quickly scanned through the protocols until he found the correct paragraph, laughing in surprise when he saw the unambiguous instruction to store samples on the bridge…  
Spock who had been standing behind Jim and had read over his shoulder stiffened. "You were correct cadet. Would you see to it that the samples are brought back to the lab and stored on top of the refrigerating units? If you would excuse me, Captain.” The Science Officer turned around without a further explanation walked back to the turbo-lift.   
Taken by surprise by the entirely out of character behaviour of his First Officer Kirk stared behind the retreating figure of his lover.


	3. Sleep, my love

Opening the doors to the quarters, Jim shared with his T’hy’la. He was more than worried about the strange behaviour his lover had exhibited earlier in the lab. He had expected to find his love sitting on a meditation mat, meditating deeply about the logic behind his rather atrocious spelling mistake. Or whatever a Vulcan would do in that case. What he did not expect though was to find his lover curled together on the meditation mat, sleeping restlessly.   
Carefully Jim knelt next to his sleeping lover placing a hand on his shoulder, not wishing to startle him too much. “Spock? Wake up, Love. We need to get you to bed."  
“Jim?” Spock murmured tiredly, trying to sit, but ending up leaning against his bond mate rather than sitting on his own power. "I cannot go to bed yet; I need to finish this meditation. How else should I understand how this grave error occurred to me?”   
Shaking his head slightly, Jim leaned over and nuzzled into his lover's hair. "That was no grave error Spock, merely an unfortunate combination of both a spellings error and science cadet that took your orders a little too literally. Your well-plates are already back on the way to the lab to incubate on the fridges. And as for why this happened; I believe staying awake over 200 hours might even be too much for a Vulcan to function at maximal efficiency."  
"But Captain, these things may not happen. What if we had been under attack and I would have given an order incorrectly, or misread a measurement? That could potentially lead to the destruction of the ship…"  
Pulling his lover closer to his chest, Jim laughed lightly “You do realize that this highly illogical comment just attributes to my point. A proof of concept if you will. Nothing bad happened, only a slight confusion for both the bridge and lab personnel. Breaking your head over what if’s, most certainly will not serve any purpose.”   
Stroking Spock’s lover’s hair lovingly, Jim started to get up, pulling his reluctant lover with him into a standing position.   
“Ashayam…" Spock started to protest silently but was cut off by his lover, kissing him softly, both in Human and Vulcan fashion.  
“Do I need to make that an order Commander? I could also ask Bones to pay us a visit, you know. Knowing him, he might just hypo you into the next week just to assure that you are sufficiently rested.”   
“Jim, please I…” But again, Jim did not let his lover finish the sentence and pulled the reluctant Vulcan to the bed that they shared.   
"Come to bed love, you can meditate tomorrow. This is a spelling mistake, after all, not an accidental order to planetary invasion. Please love, can you at least try to sleep for me?” Jim treated his lover to an impression of his infamous puppy dog eyes. He knew very well that his Vulcan was not able to resist this.   
Predictably, Spock nodded, even though looking resigned. He let himself be carefully pushed onto the soft bed by his lover. Not even offering additional resistance when Jim started to remove first Spock's shoes and then his uniform pants and shirt. Folding back the bedding, he let his reluctant lover slip under the blanket and lay down.  
When the Captain would have stood to get his PADD, he was held back by Spock, grabbing his wrist. “Please stay?” Spock’s murmured sleepy voice was a clear indication for the incredible fatigue his lover must be fighting.   
"I will Love, just let me get my PADD for a moment, please. I will come to bed immediately." Jim's whispered stroking Spock's head lovingly until the Vulcan released his tight grip on his wrist.  
Leaving his sleeping lover in the bed, Jim silently walked through the bathroom he and Spock shared to his own quarters to retrieve his PADD. He had no plan on going to sleep this night but would work on rapports and make sure that his Spock would indeed sleep for the whole night.  
Tiptoeing back to his sleeping lover, he removed most of his clothing. He switched it for a robe that Spock preferred during his leisure time before carefully insinuating himself under the sheets next to the sleeping form already present there.   
Murmuring something in his sleep Spock turned to Jim who leaned against the headboard of their bed and threw an arm over his legs, unconsciously snuggling closer to his beloved. Smiling lovingly at his suddenly very clingy lover, Jim started to caress Spock’s hair in a fashion he knew his lover found soothing, settling in to guard his Vulcans sleep for the night.


End file.
